The Four Winds Festival 2023 concludes around new beginnings — of release, flight, connection to land, ancestry, and hope for the future.
Connecting with the world’s oldest performative musical tradition, WATA in ancient Yolŋu translates as ‘wind’ in its many different iterations, both literal and mythopoetic.
Composed by Paul Grabowsky and led by master musicians known as Daniel and David Wilfred, WATA is, and forms from manikay – invocations of time and place intended for public ceremonial events. These tell of the beginnings and ends of things, of the naming of people and places through songs that in their very performance dissolve linear time into a vast well, to become a model of a fully interconnected universe.
The seven parts of WATA carry concepts conveyed by the powerful ritual words sung by Daniel and overseen by David, with improvisation serving as a thread that links the orchestral sections together as part of a living, breathing, organic musical world.
Here, we are all one.
Sunday, April 9th, 2023
3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Sound Shell, Four Winds festival site
Bermagui, NSW (Djiringanj/Yuin)
Paul Grabowsky – Composer & Piano
David Yipininy Wilfred – Yidaki
Daniel Ngukurr Boy Wilfred – Voice and Bilma
Australian Art Orchestra:
Peter Knight – Trumpet & Electronics
Aviva Endean – Bass Clarinet
Erkki Veltheim – Violin
Helen Svoboda – Double bass
Four Winds Festival Orchestra
The individual artists drawn together from across the nation to form the Festival Orchestra will be announced early next year – comprising our nation’s finest talents, the makeup of this group can be subject to change at any time.